


Treasure Lost, Treasure Found

by rowanrt7



Category: The 100 (TV), The 100 Series - Kass Morgan
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Pirate, F/M, Pirate AU, Pirates, Sorry guys, everything but the sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-10-02 06:09:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10211279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rowanrt7/pseuds/rowanrt7
Summary: Bellarke Pirate AU because, why not? Bellamy captured Clarke once, when she was a simple merchant girl. Now, she's a pirate queen, and she's ready for revenge.





	

He stood with his hands trussed behind his back, staring at the wall of men. His head hurt. The cannon fire still rang in his ears. 

Across from him, stood their captors. They were just as grimy as him and his crew. The fight had been long and tiresome. Blood trickled from their wounds. Several sat on the sidelines, their hands pressed to gashes. One, a boy of maybe seventeen, slumped against the gunwale; an errant cannonball had blown his leg off. Someone had bandaged it with an old grease cloth, but no one had gotten around to helping him. They all just loitered, staring at him. What on earth were they waiting for?

“Bellamy Blake,” said a voice from behind the wall of men. He knew that voice. His eyebrows knit together. It wasn’t a voice that belonged on a pirate ship. 

Slowly, the wall parted revealing a diminutive blonde figure. Time had not diminished her. If anything, it had smoothed the edges off her, sharpening what had been a natural grace. Around her eyes she wore thick black powder. It almost looked like gunpowder, but it illuminated the clear blue in her eyes, drawing your attention to them from half a ship away. That, he was sure, was her point.

She wore a loose white shirt, mostly red now, and black pants. It was too easy to remember the last time they had met; the thin layers cut close to the curve of her, bringing back images of the skin beneath. The last time they had met, she had worn a dress. The shape of it covered more, but he remembered how easily it had lifted ... yes, there were perks to the skirt.

Her hair looped over her ears in elaborate braids, poking from beneath a tricorn hat. His tricorn hat.

“Clarke,” he said. “Clarke ...”

“Griffin,” she said icily. “Not that it’s important.” 

Bellamy looked behind her to the carefully blank faces of her crewman. Was it good, for her, to show weakness in front of them? To let them know that they had a personal relationship? And why did he care anyway?

“That’s my hat,” he said. 

“My men don’t have any,” she said with a smile. “We had a bit of a party last night, and they all ended up overboard.”

“So, you seized my ship ... for our hats?”

“Among other reasons,” she said. For just the briefest moment, her tongue darted between her lips, her mouth relaxing, and then it settled back into stoniness. He opened his mouth to give her grief about the look, but her attention was elsewhere. “Jack!” she shouted, and a scrawny boy emerged from the mass, clutching a clipboard. 

Behind him trailed three little boys, no girls he saw as they approached. The children darted through the prisoners, collecting hats from heads and from where they had tumbled to the deck, while the man called Jack scurried after them, tallying on his clipboard. They returned to the victorious pirates and began passing the hats out, while Jack scrawled names of those who received hats, so no one could collect a second. Clarke stood while this happened, never looking in their direction. They were well trained. He had to give them that. 

“You have our hats,” he said, “now what? You’ll slaughter us all?” 

Whip fast, she had the dagger on her hip out of its sheath and pressed against his throat. “Perhaps. Would you like to go first?”

He wanted to swallow, but he was afraid of leaving blood on her knife. It had been an accident. He’d never got a chance to tell her that. He’d never intended for it to go that far. He’d taken her back to his cabin, just another bit of plunder, the girl his for the night before she was shared. Captain’s perk. That must have been how she’d seen it. But he had a sister, and he simply meant to put her ashore in a friendly port. His cabin was safer than the rest of the ship. Even then, she had to know that.

Her eyes flickered between his, and the silver of her knife against the soft flesh of his throat. Had it seen blood yet?

“What’s your price?” he whispered finally. The knife slackened. 

“I intend to have it back,” she replied just as quietly. “What you took from me all those years ago.” Then, louder, “I’ll have your ship Blake. And your crew. Whatever cargo is aboard.” She turned away from him and began issuing directions. Fairly standard. Any man who wished to could remain in her service. Her loyal crew began ferrying the Bellamy’s loot over from Princess and into Clarke’s hold. His curiosity was piqued by her announcement that any man who didn’t wish to stay would not be executed, as was standard practice, but would instead be put to port. He would’ve been more interested in it, were he not so wrapped up in her last comment. Around him, men signed her letters of marque. They looked at him sideways as they did so, worried about his reaction to their betrayal, but he was too busy watching the blonde. How had she gotten here?

Under the baking sun, as she left him standing there, attending to everything around him, his mind drifted back to the night they’d met. He had been a pirate then. She hadn’t. She’d just been a girl, the daughter of the ship’s captain, or merchant owner. He had never gotten the full story.

But she had been there, on the ship when they took it, and instead of hiding, as most girls would, she had stood on the deck, even as it was burning hurling things and screaming. She stood on the deck throwing cannon balls, loose balls of rope, even prying up bits of the shattered deck. Even still, she stood a little apart from the fight, and he was able to get to her by himself.

Three paces away from him, she stood in a long dress. It was grey in the light, whipping back and forth in the wind. Later he would find out that it had originally been blue, the color of forget me nots. Ironic, now that he thought about it, his eyes finding Clarke now.

She stood a little way off, stretching her arms over head.. By now, the sun was going down. The loot had been sorted and stowed. The men as well. Bellamy was the only one still standing, his hands in manacles. Throughout the course of the day, he’d backed up bit by bit until his back was against the mast.

“I believe it’s time for dinner, don’t you think Raven?” That name is familiar as well. Behind Clarke, stood a girl, also dressed in men’s clothes, hers entirely black. She wore a bandanna over her hair, but the tell tale braid snuck out from behind one ear. He knew her too, he thought with a flush of embarrassment. At least she had already been a pirate when they met. The two women strode off together. Jack, the wiry one, came along later.

“The captain would like to see you in her cabin,” he said. He wasn’t surprised. He followed the short man through the warren of cabins that boats always were, until they reached a round burgundy door. Jack knocked twice. “Come in,” said a quiet voice. The door opened, revealing Clarke and Raven, sitting at a rectangular table that could’ve seated 10. Both women still wore the same clothes they’d worn to fit though without the weapons and hats, their masculine sleeves rolled up over slender forearms. Both were silent.

The boy called Jack opened the door at the other end of the cabin. Clarke’s cabin. In the cabin was a queen sized bed, and in one corner a hammock. Jack shut the door behind him, leaving him in the silence. Through the thick door, he couldn’t even hear Clarke and Raven’s conversation, though he was sure it had started up the moment the door shut. The parallel smacked him in the face. He snorted.

Though he knew she was out in the cabin, eating a dinner he would never see, he could see her sitting in her blue grey dress, the smell of smoke leaking from her hair. Three years ago, her hair had been softer, darker. Her face had seemed softer too, though maybe it was the sun dark that did it.

He couldn’t imagine what she had been feeling then. Her father was dead. She had seen it. Her immediate future, to be shared among a dozen men had been joked about on the boat. She didn’t know yet he had no intention of letting that befall her. He had left her in the cabin while he’d had dinner. Little did he know then, he was giving her time to stew, and make a decision. He sat down in the cabin, and opened a bottle of wine. He poured them each a drink. There had been wine on the table outside, he knew, but the pull of the present would not distract from the pleasure of the past.

She’d never taken up the wine. Instead, he’d sat down, offered the glass out to her. She’d put it to one side and set herself in his lap. He remembered her shivering, even though it was July, and there was no ventilation in the belly of the ship. He opened his mouth to reassure her, and she covered it with hers. It was a shaky kiss, and in it he could taste the metallic taste of her fear. He pulled away, gathered a clump of her smokey hair in one hand, brushed a bit of soot off her face.

For a long moment, they looked at each other. Such blue eyes, open, scared. Once more, he went to speak and she kissed him. He should’ve had something before the second kiss, but he hadn’t. This one was sweeter. Her mouth relaxed. Her hands cupped his face. Underneath all that smoke she smelled like clean linen and butter pastry. Had she eaten some that morning, before her life changed forever?  
The door opened, jolting him out of his reverie. The object of his daydream stood before him, her face flushed with wine and good food and the joy of holding the upper hand. “Good evening,” she said cordially. 

“Good evening. This isn't necessary. I can sleep with my men.” Bellamy insisted. He cringed a little bit hearing them as the first words out his mouth.

“Nonsense,” Clarke said, “You’re a captain. And after all, it’s time I returned the favor.”

She closed the door and it was like she closed the door on the present. She was all around him again, her skirt flipped up high on her legs, her skin smooth beneath his callused hands. She was smiling at him as he pushed her over onto the bed, wrapping her leg up over his hip, pulling him into her. Her voice rang in his ears, high pitched, hesitant, then incoherent.

Clarke’s boots clumped on the floor. She sat on the bed, alone. He looked up at her abruptly. Her smile was just as bright as he remembered.

She disappeared behind the Chinese screen in the corner. Her blouse appeared over the screen, then her pants. Her corset, next, dark brown leather.

“Still wear a corset I see,” he said, sitting down at Clarke’s desk chair.

“Yes, might as well put another layer between me and the bullets,” she said absently. He wanted to ask what had happened to her, afterwards. After he hadn't known her anymore. This wasn’t what needed to be talked about.

“Clarke,” he said a little hesitantly, “you know there's no earthly way I can give you back your virginity right?” 

To his alarm she burst out laughing.. Still, she didn’t answer until she reappeared wearing a loose red dress. Where she had gotten that, he didn’t want to ask. 

“I wasn't a virgin!” she said. She opened a bottle of wine, but didn’t offer him any. 

“Oh but I thought...”

“You assumed,” she said. A tad smugly, he thought, “but you never asked and I never bled.”

He thought back. That must be true although he wasn't sure. But then what was she looking for? He wanted to ask but she was absorbed with some paperwork on her desk, holding her wine idly in one hand. Her parents? They were long dead. Her father at least. He'd watched the ship go up. Her mother he had no knowledge of. 

“Would you like your hat back?” she asked. Still that cordial tone.

“Will I be needing it?” he asked.

She turned to look at him for the first time since this afternoon. It felt different now that they were alone. It was the calm stare that he remembered from those first few moments in his cabin. It betrayed nothing. “You’re a captain, aren’t you?” She passed the hat to him, her gaze never wavering from his. He felt it all the way to his core.

Words didn’t come easily. He turned to look behind him. “You brought this hammock for me?” he asked. She laughed.

“Not at all. It’s Raven’s. But she’s got a thing with the second mate now, so I don’t think she’ll mind if you use it.”

“How ... Clarke how did you get to this place?” He wanted to feel shame, to feel responsibility, but the woman before him was one who had come into her own. She stood tall, confident even in this cramped space. 

“That’s another story,” Clarke said and for just a moment her expression tensed.

Bellamy cleared his throat. “When you say return the favor ...”

“Will we be having sex?” she asked plainly. She sat on her bed, folding her legs beneath her tent of a skirt. “Yes,” she said. “But not tonight.” Flipping back the cover of the bed, she slipped beneath the cover and blew out the lamp.

He had to grope his way to the hammock, still fully dressed, his hat still in his hands. He dropped it onto the floor, and bundled himself into the bunk. He’d had enough days on a ship not to dump himself unceremoniously out, though the design was different than he was used to. Instead of covering him, it only wraps a little on the side, leaving his face exposed to the cabin air. He could hear her breathing slow and deepen almost immediately. It made sense. It had been a long day. 

It was four days to port. Three nights after this one. He thought back to the last night he had spent in her company. She’d slept in one of his clean shirts, the dress discarded somewhere on the floor. Her corset then had been peach colored, stiff beneath his fingers. He’d awoken once in the middle of the night to find her snuggled against him, fingers curled in supplication beneath her chin. It was, he thought now, the first and only time he’d had a women sleep in his bed. But then, she’d had nowhere else to go.  
And of course, when he’d woken up in the morning she’d been gone. 

“Wake up, lazy bones,” said a voice from high above him. Clarke of course, dressed in a fresh shirt and trousers. Her corset over her blouse instead of under it. She dropped his hat onto his chest. 

“What are we doing today?” he asked. 

“It’s a beautiful day,” she said. “We’re going for a walk.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Walking on a boat?”

She led him onto the deck, and pointed up the mast. “Walking,” she said, “or as close as you can get.” She climbed the ropes carefully, calculating each move. He followed behind her easily. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done this on his own ship. Checking the mast was something his underlings mostly did. But Clarke did it herself, stopping at random intervals to check for splintering.

Beneath them, the sea spread out like a mossy hillside. Light on the eastern horizon was just rising, past the moments of grey but before the moments of yellow. It was all purple and orange, the thin line of light promising a beautiful day. They stopped on the foretop. Clarke held onto the rope and leaned out into the sea wind. 

He looked at her. The braids she’d worn yesterday had loosened around her face. For just a moment her face was at peace, and he decided he needed to ask. “How did you get off the boat?” he asked. 

She turned back to him. “You should really leave your hostages tied up. Or at least locked in.”

“You haven’t done that to me,” he noted simply. He also noted it really wasn’t an answer to his question, but he didn’t comment.

“You don’t want to leave,” she said. It was true, but it irked him that she had cut right to the heart of it. “Shall we go up to the crow's nest?” She didn’t wait for an answer. She was already on the ropes and he had nothing to do but follow. 

The second night passed in the same way as the first. Clarke in her tarty dress, alone in her bed. Bellamy in Raven’s hammock. Raven off wherever she was. She made no move on him, but this time it kept him up longer at night, replaying the first night he’d known him. He waited for her to call him over, to open the hammock and kiss him, or even just to drop his hat on his stomach again. His skin stretched taut with the waiting, and in her bed, Clarke fell asleep.

In the morning, he awoke before she did. He hoisted himself out of bed and looked at her. He’d never gotten a chance to see her in the morning light before. She lay on one side with her hands reaching towards something he couldn’t see. A bit of her hair fluttered in and out of her mouth with every breath. She opened her eyes. 

“Oh good morning,” she said, apparently ignoring the fact that he was staring at her, “I forgot to tell you, Raven had a fight with Finn, so she’s going to need her hammock back. You can sleep on the floor, of course, but you might be more comfortable in the barracks with the other men.”

He nodded. 

“I'm sorry I can't spend time with you today. I have to plot out the course and the log desperately needs updating. But you can find something to do right?”

He nodded again, trying to ignore the way his stomach had turned to stone. 

Leaving her in the cabin, he went onto the deck, and made himself useful wherever he could. The sun rose overhead sending streams of sweat down his back. The work strained his muscles, but it felt good to him. It had been too long since he had a chance to do so. 

That evening, fatigued, the crew sat on the deck, playing music, and singing songs. They passed around bottles of grog. Bellamy found a seat a little distant and sat himself down. He drummed his fingers impatiently on the barrel on which he sat. In front of him, the crew parted around a couple, who danced to a quick step tune, clapping their hands together. It was a tall, slender man with enough accouterments to create his own music with every step he took. The second mate. And he was with Raven. Raven, who was supposed to be mad at him. 

He waited until they were done dancing and then sidled up next to her. He yanked his chin, in the direction of the second mate. “I thought you two were on the outs.”

She laughed. He had never heard Raven laugh before. Wiping the sweat from her brow, she said, “No,” she said, “why would you think such a thing?” The tone of her voice implied she knew exactly why he would think that. She swept the bottle of grog out of his hand and took a long pull of it. Watching his face, waiting for him to understand.

“She’s just playing with me isn’t she?” he asked her. Raven twisted her mouth to one side. “She never intended ...” he trailed off, though, he was sure Raven had far more details then the poise of her eyebrow let on. “If she thinks she can ...” he stopped again. Watching him, Raven took another long drag off his grog. He spun on his heel, fuming. He was half angry with Clarke for pulling this crap on him, setting him up, thinking he could have her. But he was entirely angry at himself that it had worked.

He barged past Jack, who sat sleepily at her front door, through her dining room, and shoved open her cabin door. Inside she sat at her desk. Her hair was neatly braided down her back. Instead of her red gown she wore a white shirt, sleeves unbuttoned. It was two size bigger than the one she’d worn that day. A cup of wine sat her elbow but she wasn’t drinking it. 

“What the hell are you playing at?” he demanded as he burst through the door. She jumped and the ink from her pen splattered across the parchment. And then, a beat later, “is that my shirt?”  
Her face froze. She drew one bare leg up, folding her knee beneath her chin. “No,” she said quietly, and entirely unconvincingly. 

“You kept that for three years?” He can’t help the smirk from spreading across his face. 

She crossed her arms. “It’s only been two.”

All of his anger evaporated. Bellamy popped open the top button of his shirt, and crossed over to her desk. “You are just the most stubborn girl I’ve ever met,” he said. He bent down over her.

She reached up, and pulled a curl over her finger. Then, she pushed it away. One corner of her mouth turned up. Carefully, so as not to push him away, she drew the other knee up to her chest.

“Why would you do that to me?” he asked. He could barely breathe. He feathered his fingers along her neck. He let his thumb rest on the fluttering fast pulse in her neck. Then he reached back into her hair, tugging the tie from the end of her braid. Clarke sat quietly, entirely still. She didn’t answer him. 

When he kissed her, she was no longer passive. She laced her fingers into his hair. He reached down and pulled her ankles off the chair, dropping the weight of her legs on the floor. He tilted her chin up towards his. “Why would you do that to me?” he asked again, but she only smiled and stood up into him. 

“Do you really want to ask me questions right now Bellamy?” she asked, unbuttoning his shirt. Her eyes followed the line of him. He didn’t even bother with the buttons on her shirt. He simply pushed it off of her and pulled her flush against him, letting his hands touch every nodule of her spine. 

He grinned. “I really don’t, but I have to. Just one.”

“I’m getting cold over here Blake,” Clarke said, running her finger beneath his waistband. 

He jumped at the touch, but he was able to keep his voice steady. “Will you be here in the morning?”

Her grin was the only answer he needed. 

The next morning, although port is a day or so off, his ship was back. Where she had sent it, he had no idea. “You paid my price,” she said with a smile.

Her crew put a gangplank down between the two ships and the men who hadn’t signed her letter of marque filed over it, blinking from the sharp sunlight, which none of them had seen for the past two days. They looked baffled at their good luck. Bellamy watched, his hat returned to his rightful place on his head. Although his ship was light a load of bounty, he hadn’t come out much the worse for the experience. He felt hollow though, at the thought of returning. 

Clarke watched silently. When all of the men had crossed over Bellamy followed, trying not to look back. But he couldn’t help it; right as he stepped onto Princess he looked over his shoulder. Only to find that Clarke had followed him over and now she stood above him, her hair falling like a curtain over his shoulder, blocking the light between them. 

“So what was it that you got back?” he asked into the comfortable quiet.

“I didn't get it back,” she said, with a small smile. “But that's alright. I have something better now. Yours.” 

“My what?”

She leaned down and kissed him, tilting his face up towards her, like she was the sun and then, as she pulled away, sweeping his hat from his head and covering her curls with it.

“Your heart,” she said in his ear, she scurried over the gangplank.

“And my hat,” he said quietly to himself as he watched her cross the bridge between their ships. 

It fell into the ocean behind her and The Ark sailed off, taking its captain with her.

**Author's Note:**

> Quick note: The hat thing really happened. Pirates were weird bro. And I have to say, I really intended to write this as porn. I'm getting there. But I'm still a little squidgy about it. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
